The domain of this invention is the manufacture of automobile vehicles. More precisely, the invention relates to the manufacture of doors for automobile vehicles.
Conventionally, an automobile vehicle door has a solid lower part and an upper glazed part. The glazed part is usually surrounded by an upper frame inside which the window fits. This frame is formed in the door structure.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a door of this type, like most doors installed on vehicles at the present time. This type of door has a structural element 11 inside which door opening and locking means 12 are fitted, together with a window 13 and the mechanism 14 for sliding the window in a slit provided for it formed in the lower part of the door.
An outer bodywork panel 15, and an inner trim 16, are then added.
Doors of this type have a number of disadvantages. They involve a large number of components to be assembled, and their assembly is long and difficult, particularly for the sliding window 13 that must be positioned very precisely.
In the case of a manual or electrical mechanism, the equipment for moving the window 13 is complex, heavy and cumbersome.
Furthermore, the fact that the window can move into the lower part of the door causes a number of problems for safety (position and size of the lateral stiffeners 17), esthetics and ergonomy (size of storage pockets 18).
The presence of an upper frame fixed to the lower part on the structural element 11 and on the bodywork panel 15, also makes manufacturing and assembly of the door rather difficult, particularly since an appropriate seal must be placed in this frame for waterproofing.
Some manufacturers have designed vehicles in which the doors do not have upper frames, in which the window alone closes the upper part. Other problems arise in this case, particularly related to the overall stiffness and waterproofing.
Waterproofing is a serious problem in the slit through which the window slides inside the door. Regardless of how efficient these seals are, dust and moisture eventually penetrate inside the door and in the short or long term modify or degrade operation of the door and/or window opening mechanism.
The invention is intended to correct these various disadvantages in prior art.
More precisely, one objective of the invention is to provide a process for manufacturing a door for an automobile vehicle that is simpler and faster to use than known manufacturing processes.
Another objective of the invention is to provide a door, and the corresponding manufacturing process, that contains fewer components and has a lighter weight than known techniques.
Another objective of the invention is to provide a similar door with improved waterproofing, without any complex or expensive special equipment.
Another objective of the invention is to provide a manufacturing process that can be used to make doors with new characteristics, particularly concerning esthetics and ergonomy, and particularly doors that provide more space for passengers and/or internal storage pockets.
These objectives, and others which will become clearer later, are achieved according to the invention using a process for manufacturing a door for an automobile vehicle, in which the door is made in two parts assembled independently of each other:
a lower part without guide means for a moving window, and
an upper part containing a window, the lower and upper parts then being affixed to each other at an assembly area of the door, extending approximately horizontally and corresponding to the top of the lower part and the bottom of the upper part.
Thus, the invention is based on a quite new and not obvious approach to making doors for automobile vehicles.
Conventionally, the upper part of a door is physically connected to its lower part at the beginning of assembly through the presence of a frame formed in the same bodywork element and/or by the presence of means enabling the window to slide. According to the invention, the two parts are independent and they are only fixed together when they are finished.
There are no elements that move and/or are shared between the two parts. They are simply fastened together. They are fastened at an assembly area which corresponds approximately to the bottom of the upper part (area in which the slit is formed through which the window slides conventionally in known types of doors).
Advantageously, the upper part of the door comprises means of closing the window, comprising a fixed window panel and at least one mobile window panel, the mobile window panel being used to open or close an opening formed in the fixed window panel.
In other words, the upper part can advantageously be fitted with a xe2x80x9cflushxe2x80x9d window using the technique developed by the applicant for this patent application
In this case, the mobile window panel is preferably mounted on at least one support and/or guide element (for example rails) fixed to the fixed window panel.
According to one advantageous embodiment of the invention, the upper part of the door comprises a frame or at least one approximately vertical upright on its inner face.
Preferably, at least one of the ends of at least one of the support and/or guide elements is fixed to the frame or the approximately vertical uprights of the closing means.
Thus, if the fixed window panel is accidentally broken, the moving panel remains in position and cannot injure the driver or his passenger.
According to another aspect of the invention, the step in which a lower part of the door is made advantageously includes the assembly of an outer bodywork panel 212 and an inner trim on a structural element.
Therefore, compared with conventional methods, these operations are very simple, particularly in that there are no window sliding means and no upper frame (which would have to be fitted with a seal).
The attachment step can involve at least one of the operations belonging to the group including gluing, welding, brazing or riveting.
According to a first embodiment of the invention, the mobile window panel is mounted on two support and/or guide elements, so as to slide in a plane approximately parallel to the plane formed by the fixed window panel.
In particular, the mobile window panel may be mounted to fit in the plane formed by the fixed window panel in the closed position.
For example, its mechanism can be broken down into two independent displacements:
a locking/unlocking displacement perpendicular to the plane formed by the fixed window panel, and enabling passage from the plane formed by the fixed window panel to a sliding plane approximately parallel to the plane formed by the fixed window panel;
displacement by sliding in the sliding plane.
According to one approach, the mobile window panel may have a continuous mechanism, such that the plane formed by the mobile window moves gradually into a sliding plane approximately parallel to the plane formed by the fixed window panel.
According to different embodiments, the sliding plane is located inside the vehicle or outside the vehicle.
In another embodiment, the mobile window panel is mounted to swing around an axis of rotation parallel to the plane formed by the fixed window panel.
The invention also relates to doors obtained by using the process described above.